US and Cuba Must Begin New Chapter

By Barbara Lee  |  Politico  |  Link to article
April 27, 2009

By any objective standard, our current policy toward Cuba just hasn’t worked. It was clear to me when I first traveled to Cuba in the mid-1970s as a congressional staffer, and it is even clearer to me now, more than three decades later.

In the intervening years, I have visited Cuba as part of many different delegations and have met with myriad government officials, health care practitioners, artists, musicians, educators and a wide array of dissident groups on several occasions and in a variety of capacities.

I led a congressional delegation to Cuba earlier this month, buoyed by the hope that with President Barack Obama in the White House, we were presented with a great new opportunity to rethink U.S. foreign policy with our nearest Caribbean neighbor. The purpose of this visit was to determine if the climate and the will exist in Cuba to forge a new direction.

After a series of meetings with high-ranking Cuban officials, including President Raul Castro and his brother, former President Fidel Castro, I am convinced that the Cubans do want dialogue. They do want to talk, and they do want normal relations with the United States of America. And I believe that it’s in the United States’ best interest to work to move our countries forward.

While Obama’s decision this week to end restrictions on travel and remittances for Cuban-Americans with family still in Cuba is a step in the right direction, I look forward to working with the administration to move toward a better relationship between the U.S. and Cuba.

Since my days as a congressional staffer, I have worked to normalize relations between our two countries. I know that there are many issues that must be put on the table, among them the status of Afro-Cubans, political prisoners and human rights. I also understand Cuba has differences with the U.S. as well. Only through engaging in discussion and dialogue on these very important issues will progress be made.

I recognize that much work must be done before the U.S. and Cuba will be able to put aside the differences of our past. This certainly will not be easy. However, the purpose of this particular visit was not to put to rest 50 years of differences, but to determine as members of Congress the impact of our foreign policy and if it needs to change.

The U.S. is alone in enforcing a unilateral trade embargo with a nation of 11 million people 90 miles off our shores. Our Government Accountability Office issued a report last year that found our embargo is ineffective because we have no support from the international community and that the enforcement of trade and travel restrictions on American citizens is a dangerous distraction for our government on the homeland security front.

As noted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our unilateral embargo sequesters “the United States from its allies while denying U.S. companies access to markets in which third-country firms can do business easily.”

Every other nation in the Western Hemisphere has normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, as do most European nations. This leaves the United States isolated from the global community.

We must reengage and begin a new chapter in the history of bilateral relations with both the Cuban government and the Cuban people.